


To Keep Warm

by spockandawe



Series: Let Me Hold My Broken Parts [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alcohol, Depression, Explicit Sexual Content, Ghosts, M/M, Masturbation, Praise Kink, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 19:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9457931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: You spend the day in Starscream’s quarters. Not really the way things tend to go, you usually try to get out and about, see what’s happening, keep tabs on everything that’s going on. Hang outaroundyour friends, even if they can’t actually tell you’re there. You try to keep yourself active, because if you stop moving you’re worried you won’t ever start again. You’d say that lying around every day would kill you, but hey! That would be a bit late to the punch.Still, there are days when you can’t quite convince yourself that it’s worth going out and watching and listening and figuring out everything you can about what all the major players are doing. It’sintelligence,it should be right up your alley. Maybe it just doesn’t matter when the only person you can pass things to is Starscream, or maybe you’re just. Tired.But the point is that you’ve been wasting cycles and cycles lounging around in Starscream’s quarters. So you don’t know how his day went, but you’re there to see him come back home carrying a large bottle of engex and nothing else.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for not-exactly-healthy alcohol use and food issues in this story.
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/156342116526/to-keep-warm-spockandawe-the-transformers-idw)

You spend the day in Starscream’s quarters. Not really the way things tend to go, you usually try to get out and about, see what’s happening, keep tabs on everything that’s going on. Hang out _around_ your friends, even if they can’t actually tell you’re there. You try to keep yourself active, because if you stop moving you’re worried you won’t ever start again. You’d say that lying around every day would kill you, but hey! That would be a bit late to the punch.

Still, there are days when you can’t quite convince yourself that it’s worth going out and watching and listening and figuring out everything you can about what all the major players are doing. It’s _intelligence,_ it should be right up your alley. Maybe it just doesn’t matter when the only person you can pass things to is Starscream, or maybe you’re just. Tired.

But the point is that you’ve been wasting cycles and cycles lounging around in Starscream’s quarters. So you don’t know how his day went, but you’re there to see him come back home carrying a large bottle of engex and nothing else.

He goes right through his public rooms and straight to his berth chamber, opening the bottle as he goes, and you float along behind him. He sits down on the berth, and downs half the bottle in one go. It takes a while, and you _see_ him glance at you while he’s drinking. But he ignores you and just keeps on going.

When he finally puts the bottle down, you say, “Did you even fuel? Or are you just pretending all you need is engex again?”

Starscream doesn’t even bother looking at you when he replies. “I haven’t listened to my better judgment so far, what makes you think I’m going to start now?”

You drift a little closer, and from here you can see the tremor in his hands. It’s been a while since that showed up. Should he see a doctor? Probably. Will he listen if you tell him to? Absolutely not. “You need to go see Flatline about your hands.”

“No,” he says.

There’s quiet for a minute. Starscream is just looking off across the room at nothing in particular. You’re busy listing off to yourself all the reasons it won’t be productive to keep arguing he should go see a medic. But when he picks up the bottle and takes another long drink, you can’t resist chiming in again.

“Have some energon.”

He ignores you.

“Starscream, you _have_ energon, it’s right here. It’s in that ridiculous secret compartment in your berth. And in the other ridiculous secret compartment beneath that table. And in the other ridiculous secret compartment in the wall. Go drink some energon.”

Finally, he looks up at you. And takes another drink. Probably because he has being irritating down to an art. “I’m not hungry.”

“Then that’s another reason to see Flatline. You should—”

“ _And_ I don’t want to.” Another drink.

You try not to sigh. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “Come on, what is all this energon for, if you aren’t going to eat it?”

He waves one hand vaguely around. “You know. In case.”

“In case of what? You’re in charge of the planet, if there’s any kind of shortage, you’re going to be the last one to feel it.”

And we’re back to ignoring you again. Always great having these conversations, very rewarding, you can’t think of a better way to spend your afterlife.

 _Fine._ Fine. If he wants to self-destruct, it’s not like you can do much when he refuses to help himself. Maybe it’d be better to just wander away and leave him alone to wallow in… whatever he’s wallowing in. But you’re looking at the one and only person in the universe who’s even aware you exist, or who can talk to you. What a great position to be in.

So even though you probably _should_ leave, you try, “How was your day?”

All you get in reply is “ _You_ already know.”

So that’s great. You’re back at _this_ again. “I’m not a hallucination.”

Ignoring… Ignoring… And you have officially been ignored. Really enriches this weak excuse for an afterlife when the only person you can interact with keeps insisting that you’re not actually real.

Starscream drains the last of the engex, and nearly misses the table altogether when he tries to put the empty bottle down. So that’s a promising start to the evening. You guess you should just be glad that he only brought the one bottle, and not an entire case.

He just sits on the berth for a klik or two, staring off into the corner. Yeah, it’s times like this you feel bad for thinking you should just let him implode. _Keep_ imploding. That might be more accurate.

“Go drink some energon,” you say.

At least that shakes him into motion. “I already said no.” He picks up the bottle, but it’s just as empty as before, and he puts it back down. It nearly tips over until he just barely manages to catch it.

So he’s more drunk than you thought, on top of everything else. You hope he’s not going to go wandering around. It’s usually a mix of funny and sad watching him try to function like this, but as time goes on, the balance tips harder and harder towards just being plain sad. “Make an appointment with Flatline,” you tell him.

“I said no to that too.”

Starscream doesn’t try to get up. He tips back until he goes over, then lies sprawled across the berth, looking over at you. His face is blank and _tired._

“Get some rest,” you say.

“ _No.”_

He turns his head so he’s staring up at the ceiling instead. For a moment, you think he’s going to just spend the evening this way. But then he sighs and slowly spreads his legs, so they hook over the outside edges of the berth, and lifts his hand up to rest on his stomach plating.

Oh.

Okay, then.

It isn’t like this is anything new. You’ve been around for a while, you have literally nobody else to talk to, and the one person you can interact with is still convinced that you aren’t real, so you don’t count. You’ve seen this before, is what you’re trying to say.

You drift over towards Starscream’s berth. He just looks more and more exhausted the closer you get. “So are we just pretending like nothing is wrong?”

He doesn’t even glance your way. “I’m talking to _you,_ aren’t I?”

And he doesn’t even move until you get close enough to lean between him and the ceiling. When you bend over him, he turns his head back towards you, just the smallest bit. “What, are you planning to shame me until I decide I _don’t_ want an overload after all?”

“No, that’s not—” You sigh. “You’re allowed to get off. Obviously.”

“Oh, _good_ ,” he says. “You know how I _live_ for your approval.”

“Anyways, you’re too drunk to get anything useful done. But in the morning, these problems aren’t going away—”

“I’m not drunk.”

“One, I’m not stupid enough to believe that. Two, I can recognize a derail when I see it. Three, you _must_ be drunk if you think that counts as anything even close to subtle.”

He finally meets your optics. “You’re in denial.”

“ _I’m_ in—” You cut yourself off. Slow ventilation. But you don’t miss the way his mouth upward at the corners.

“Besides,” he adds. “You’re all in my head. So you know how drunk I am. Not. How drunk I’m not.”

Oh. Fantastic. More of this. Really makes existence so much more pleasant when the one person who can see you keeps saying you don’t exist after all. That had been something almost close to a pleasant conversation, but you just aren’t really feeling it anymore.

So you say, “Weren’t you looking to get an overload?”

He looks at you for a long moment, then turns his head to look off towards the far wall. “No.”

And this is with his legs still spread across the berth and his hand sitting barely above the panel. Right. “Because I’m pretty sure you _just_ said some things about wanting an overload.”

“No.”

You press a knuckle between your optics. It isn’t fair that you don’t have a real body and you _still_ get headaches. “I swear, I’ve known half-thawed MTOs more mature than you.”

“ _No._ ”

But this time you can hear the half-muffled sniggers, and you float right through to the other side of the berth to get a better view of him. You just give him a _look_ until he meets your optics, then sigh. “Now that’s just sad. You can’t even hold onto the act for three words before you start to lose it? You’re _sure_ you’re not sick?”

“Shut up,” he says, “I’m drunk.”

You’re smiling a little now, and you’re not sure where this came from, but if this evening is taking a turn for the better, you’ll roll with it.

“Come on. Get yourself off, then. And maybe you can get some decent recharge for a change.”

And Starscream— takes his hand _away_ from his panel. He puts both his hands behind his head, locks optics with you, and slowly, deliberately, crosses his legs. “So _pushy,”_ he says.

“Are you serious. You were just saying I was going to try to shame you out of getting an overload. You were _just_ saying that, that was less that a klik ago.”

He’s smirking. “That was before you were telling me to do it. And now you’re saying I _should_ , so...”

“So? So it’s time for self-sabotage? Because that’s all I’m seeing here.”

“Oh, _please._ There is _nobody_ on this planet as good at self-sabotage as me. An amateur like you can’t expect understand all the intricacies of my brilliant self-sabotaging plans.”

And... he’s starting to crack up again. The longer you stare at him, the harder he starts to lose it. You won’t lie, you’re holding back a bit of a smile too. It probably helps you that you’re significantly less drunk than he is.

“If I tell you not to get off, are you going to agree? Or are you going to decide to get off after all, just to spite me?”

You don’t even get a proper answer to that, he’s too busy snickering and trying (and failing) to look dignified.

It’s ridiculous enough that you do let yourself smile, just a little. “Come on, then. Open your panel. This is already enough of a disaster without letting you make things even more difficult.”

He finally manages to stop laughing, but stays right where he is, with his hands behind his head. All he does is uncross and recross his legs, from right-over-left to left-over-right. “Since when are you giving the orders?”

“Since I decided someone had to salvage this mess. Are you saying no?”

“I’m saying… _make me._ ”

You sigh. _Again._ “I can’t _make_ you do anything. I can go away and you can deal with this by yourself. Or you can take the easy way out, and just let me tell you what to do.”

And—no reaction. No reply. He’s just watching you. Is that a yes? It sure would be nice if he could ever _say_ yes when he means yes. So you try, “Starscream, legs apart.”

He… uncrosses his legs. You still can’t quite read his face. You can’t even read the atmosphere. You have no idea what’s going on here, or how the two of you got into this position in the first place.

But whatever’s happening, it feels fragile. So the pause is too long and too awkward, but you push on and repeat, “Legs _apart.”_

Starscream listens. That’s probably the most shocking part of the entire evening. He spreads his legs until his ankles hook over the outside edges of the berth again.

He still hasn’t said a word, and he still hasn’t looked away from you. You think—your best guess is that he’s as confused about how things got to this point as you are. You _hope_ he’s just as confused as you are, or you probably look like even more of an idiot than you feel.

“Hand on your panel,” you say.

And apparently Starscream is feeling like himself again, because he sighs theatrically and says, “ _Which_ hand?”

Right, you have had enough of that. “ _Pick one._ ” He takes his right hand from behind his head and begins to move it down his body, but you raise your hand and cut him off. “Nope. That hand stays where it is. You get your _other_ hand, and that’s it. If this hand moves, you’ll get a penalty.”

What kind of penalty? Primus, you don’t know. You’ll leave, you guess, that’s about the only thing you have the ability to do. But Starscream doesn’t argue. He gives you a nasty look, but he doesn’t protest at all as he puts his right hand back behind his head and moves his left hand to rest lightly between his legs.

“Panel open,” you tell him. “However you want to get yourself there.”

He sighs, but doesn’t argue. He _does_ take his time, and since Starscream is _Starscream,_ there’s a decent chance he’s doing that to try to annoy you. It isn’t going to work, because it’s not like you have anywhere else to be, or anything else you could be doing. But he does go slowly.

You start out floating right beside his head, but it isn’t like you can see much of what’s happening from there. So after a klik or so, you drift off down the berth to get a better view. He’s just tracing one finger around the edges of his panel, circling along the fine, almost-invisible line between his plates.

When you look up back towards Starscream’s face, you accidentally lock optics for a moment. You’re the first to look away, back down at his panel. He switches his rhythm then, pressing his palm against his panel. You can see the slow flex of his wrist as he rocks his hand against himself.

After that, it isn’t too long until you see his panel shift and slide away under his fingers. You’ve been watching quietly, but, “ _There_ you go,” slips out before you can help it. Starscream jumps, barely enough to notice, but you’ve got a front row seat to see it from.

His spike pressurizes into his hand, but he just holds it lightly, not moving, for a few long nanokliks. You’re not sure what he’s waiting for until he says, “Well?”

Oh— It’s your turn to jump and hope he didn’t notice. “Well. Why don’t you show me how you like to touch yourself?”

That’s an empty order, and you know it is. You’ve been around enough to see plenty, you know much more than you’d ever expected to about Starscream’s berth habits. But he still shivers when you say it, one full-body shudder, all the way out to the tips of his wings.

He gets a grip on his spike, and strokes himself once, slowly. You’re close enough to see all of his biolights and detailing, all of the faint seams between his delicate plates. He runs his hand from base to tip, pauses, then from tip to base, even more slowly than he was moving before. When you glance up at him, his optics are locked on you. Watching you watch _him,_ you realize.

So you look back down at his spike, but it’s much harder to keep your optics on just that now that you’re aware of how Starscream’s optics are on you. You didn’t even look at him long enough to get a decent read of his expression, but now you can’t _stop_ being aware of how he’s watching you. It’s right there at the edges of your vision, you can see the red glow of his optics, still locked on you.

You feel like you have to break the tension _somehow_ , but you open your mouth and what comes out is, “That all you’ve got?”

Somehow it works—which is a decent three-word summary of the entire evening, to be honest. Even without looking at his face, you can _see_ Starscream’s smirk. He raises his feet up onto the berth again, and at first you think he’s closing his legs. But no, he’s just after leverage so he can arch up off the berth, moving against his hand. You can see his valve starting to drip lubricant, and you can see the way he brushes his palm across the tip of his spike on every stroke.

Distantly, you hear yourself say, “That’s good.”

Less distantly, you hear his fans spin up _hard._ And when you look up at his face, suddenly, he’s looking away from you. Is he seriously pretending that didn’t just happen? He _is._ So what was it, the… praise? What are you talking about, this is _Starscream,_ it was _absolutely_ the praise. You really should have made that connection a long time ago.

And that is going to make your job so much easier.

“Starscream.” No answer. And he’s still not looking at you. “ _Starscream._ ” Still no response. But his hand is moving faster on his spike. And since he’s not looking, you let yourself grin. “Come on, spread those legs wider, I want to see that pretty little valve.”

You… regret that almost instantly. You sound like an actor from one of those trashy vids people used to pass around. Just— no. But it sure seems to work for Starscream.

He doesn’t even pause for even a nanoklik before he parts his legs for you. He pulls his right hand from behind his head and gets it halfway to his valve before he catches himself, and he shoots you a guilty look as he sets it back behind his head again. You graciously ignore his mistake. Mostly because you have no idea what to _do_ about it, but shh, that’s not important.

Starscream does hesitate then, with his left hand hovering uncertainly over his valve, watching you. Now what? “Wider,” you tell him, to buy yourself a few moments. “You can do better than that.”

That does make him shiver, and like before, he doesn’t even pause before doing what you tell him. When his legs are spread wide open for you, you’ve got some idea of how to move forward. A little idea. Or you’ve made your peace with not having a clue what you’re doing at all. One of those.

You do take a deliberate moment to admire the view, and tell him, “Very nice.” He manages not to shiver this time, but from the corner of your optic, you see him bite his lip for a nanoklik before he catches himself. His optics are locked on you, and his left hand is still where it was before, still not quite touching himself.

“Go on,” you say. “Show me what you like.”

He makes a muffled little noise when he slides a finger into his valve. He adds a second, almost immediately, moving his fingers against himself at the same pace he’d been stroking his spike. He still hasn’t looked away from you, but you’re having a hard time looking away from his valve, and the way his biolights cast soft hints of red onto the blue of his hand.

You might not be able to look away, but you can still definitely hear how loud his fans are running. How hard he’s ventilating. You shouldn’t _just_ watch, though, you need to participate, there has to be something you can say—

“You can fit another finger, can’t you?”

That gets you a choked little. “ _Nnh—_ ” from Starscream. He does it, though.

He has to go more slowly here, easing a third finger carefully into his valve. His ventilations are ragged and uneven, and he’s still watching you watch him. You drift closer without realizing it, until you’re floating there between his legs. You can see a drop of transfluid drip from his spike onto his stomach, you can see the way his legs are starting to shake with how wide they’re spread.

It isn’t easy for him to get that third finger into himself, he has to go carefully, easing the three fingers deeper into himself, as far as they’ll go. When his knuckles finally bump up against his valve, you steal a glance up at his face, and the two of you accidentally lock optics. He’s ventilating unsteadily, and you can see his optics flickering as he watches you.

“You did it,” you tell him. Uselessly. Urgh. come on, you need to hold up your end of things. “You know what I want you to do now?”

It takes him two tries to get words out of his vox box instead of just static. “What?”

“I want you to frag yourself. _Hard._ ”

His head snaps back, and you hear a strangled moan, but your attention is all on his valve again. He works his fingers in and out of himself punishingly fast. He arches off the berth, pushing into his hand, and you can’t look away. But—you _do_ notice when he takes his right hand from behind his head, and clumsily grabs for his spike.

“ _Starscream,”_ you say. He jumps, and when you get a decent look at him, his face is _absolutely_ guilty.

You float up to the top of the berth, right next to his head. Like this, it’s almost like you’re sitting next to him. “You had _one_ rule. Come on, put that hand back where it belongs.”

To his credit, he mostly manages. It stays there at first, as he presses his fingers deep into his valve again. Your angle might not be as good as before, but from here, you have a real good view of the whole rest of his body. You can see the little shifts in his expression as his optics flicker offline. You can hear the little noises he tries his hardest to muffle. You can see the way his wings flick and twitch every time he touches somewhere especially sensitive.

Starscream manages until you murmur, “That’s right, just like that—”

He gasps and arches, starts to move his hand again before he catches himself. He locks optics with you and freezes, his fans roaring, just watching you. After a moment he remembers himself, and starts to recover.

So of course, you take the opportunity to say, “Keep going, I could watch you all night.”

That gets him even better than you thought. He grabs for your hand, but his fingers go right through you. That— Your spark does a sad little twist. He ends up awkwardly scrabbling at the top of the berth, and you aren’t sure he’s even properly remembering that you don’t exactly have substance.

“Shh,” you soothe. “Shh, calm down. Look, just hold onto the edge of the berth, you can get a good grip right there—”

It would be easier to do this if you could just grab his hand and move it yourself, but that isn’t really an option, is it. Still, once you’ve gotten him settled, you must be doing something right, because he’s still working his fingers in and out of his valve, arching up against his hand, almost writhing as he chases after whatever it is he needs.

“Come on. You’re almost there,” you coax. “Can you finish like this?”

His optics are offline, and you can’t tell whether his face reads more pleasure or pain. He tries to push his head sideways into your leg. Which might have worked better if you had a body.

You try again. “Starscream. Can you finish?”

“ _No,”_ he manages.

Oh— _the wrong hand_ , you guiltily realize. Not something you actually meant to do.

“You’ve got this,” you tell him, “You’ve got this. You just need to get your hand on your node instead. Do that for me?”

You think he nods. And you definitely don’t have a good view of what he’s doing, especially with his spike in the way. But you think he just might have managed when you see his back arch off the berth and he gasps, “ _Ahnn—”_

It doesn’t quite tip him over the edge. His teeth are gritted and his optics are offline, and he’s not quite _getting there._ You can’t touch him, and you never expected that to be quite as frustrating as it is now. But you’ve still got words.

“Come on, you’re so close,” you whisper. “Just look at you. Have you ever seen yourself like this? Do you know how good you look this way? You’re doing so well, you’re doing perfect—”

Starscream doesn’t make a noise when he hits overload. He twists sideways, curling in on himself. His legs are still held spread wide by the edges of the berth, but you can see his thighs straining and shivering as he fights to close them. With him at this angle, you can see his finger on his node, see the way his finger stays on it all the way through the overload as he gasps and shakes.

When it’s done, it’s a few moments before he moves. And even then, at first, it’s just to tuck his legs up onto the berth. He puts an arm across his eyes for a klik, and the only noise is his fans, still running hot. You can’t tell if you ought to say something, or if you ought to give him space to recover.

He makes a move before you make a decision. He sits upright, and doesn’t even make it all the way vertical before he starts to tip over. Like an idiot, you try to catch him before belatedly remembering that right, that’s not an option. He manages to catch himself before he falls over entirely, and then sits where he is on the edge of the berth, gently swaying back and forth.

He looks down at his hands, like those have the answer, then over at you. He mumbles, “Wh—?”

You drift a little closer. He’s still wobbling, and the tremor in his hands is worse than it was before you started. That’s… alarming. But oh, then you remember— “The engex,” you tell him. “You’re still drunk. On top of not fueling right and not recharging as much as you need to. Go drink some energon.”

And hey, progress. He doesn’t immediately disagree with you. Not that he goes to get any energon either. But still. Progress.

You give him another nudge. “Starscream, drink some energon and then you can go recharge for the night. Look, you’ve got energon right next to your leg, it’s _right_ there, you just have to open the secret compartment.”

Wonder of wonders, he even starts to listen to you. He reaches down to the side of the berth, he even manages not to tip over, but—

“No— that’s the wrong secret compartment, that one just has a gun. Are you even listening? Starscream, I just told you—”

And it’s no good, he holds up the gun with such a look of aggravated betrayal that you have to struggle not to laugh.

“You’re a disaster,” you tell him. “A complete disaster. You hid these things in the first place, and now you can’t even remember where you put them, and you won’t listen to someone who _does_. You want the _other_ secret compartment, the one that isn’t gun-sized.”

He does manage it this time, though for a moment you’re afraid he’s about to overbalance. He leaves the gun in the wrong compartment, but he comes up holding a canister of energon, and that’s what counts.

He’s just about to open it— and then he pauses and looks over at you. “But I’m _not_ hungry.”

“Tough luck,” you push, “Because you’ve got to have empty fuel tanks by now. You already weren’t eating, and then you had an overload. Go check your fuel levels, I bet those shakes are at least partly because you’re running on empty.”

He’s still reluctant, you can see it written all over his face. But he cracks open the canister and takes his first sip of energon.

And he immediately makes a face and opens his mouth to argue. So you cut him off before he can say a word.

“That’s right. Good job.”

It seems so weak to you. But it stops Starscream right in his tracks. Slowly, he lifts the canister to his mouth and takes another sip.

“ _Very_ good. That’s perfect.”

And even drunk and exhausted, Starscream is clever enough to catch a game like that. He gives you a flat look, but you think he might be muffling a smile behind his drink. He takes another sip, but then makes a face again and sets the canister aside.

“I’m still not hungry. And that’s for saving, not using.”

You try not to sigh. “You can replace it in the morning. You have that ability. I’m serious, go look at your fuel levels, because I’m fairly sure they’re not pretty.”

He does, and you see him waver for a moment, but when he looks down at the energon canister again, he crosses his arms and glares off at a far corner of the room. And he’s still impressively wobbly. If he doesn’t eat something, he’s going to really regret it tomorrow.

You try, “Not even if I tell you how nice you looked just now?”

He… _tries_ to act like that doesn’t make him sit up and take notice. You give him credit for the effort at least.

But he still sneers, “ _Please._ You mean like you were doing now? Just repeating ‘good job,’ ‘very good job,’ until you bore me into submission?”

I _mean_ that if you really drink your energon, I’ll tell you something of substance.”

He’s still hesitating. And still extremely drunk. But after a few nanokliks, he picks up the canister again and glances uncertainly over at you. He manages an arch look, and says, “Well?”

Well—Well you weren’t prepared for this situation, is what. If you’d know something like this was ever coming, you would have tried to be ready. But honestly, if anyone had told you this would ever be happening, you would have laughed in their face. “Why don’t we start with the noises you were making,” you try. “Have you ever recorded yourself? Because that was really something to listen to.”

He has about two little sips of energon and sets the canister aside again. And you do allow yourself a quiet sigh. We’re going to playing it _this_ way, you guess.

“How about your legs,” you say. “I saw what you were doing there, using the berth to keep them apart. That was clever—and I hope you know how good it looked. Just imagine, getting you in cuffs to do that properly, seeing how long we could drag it out. And the hands too, Even having just one hand out of the picture—that was something, watching the way you looked when you were struggling.”

You feel like an idiot, but Starscream is smirking to himself and taking steady sips of energon as you talk. You manage to say nice things about his legs, hands, face, wings, all sorts of parts of his anatomy, before you finally realize he’s halfway to recharge sitting right where he is.

“Starscream. _Starscream._ ” You have to practically shout to get his attention, and when he startles awake, he nearly goes right over the edge of the berth. You snap your fingers in front of his face. You say, “You need to go to sleep.”

And he tries to argue _that_ point, of all the silly things. Privately, you think he just wasn’t done listening to you admire him yet. Not that he was awake to even hear it at that point, but you think that's his biggest issue.

It’s surprisingly difficult trying to get a half-asleep, _entirely_ drunk mech to go from sitting on his berth to just _lying_ on his berth. You’d say Starscream was trying to cause problems on purpose—it is in character—but when you look at him dozing off where he is, no matter how many times you wake him up, it’s a little difficult to imagine him being the mastermind of anything at all.

The energon isn’t quite done, there’s still some left at the bottom of the canister by the time you persuade Starscream to move it to the side table. But that was still more energon than you’ve seen him eat in days. _And_ he’s going into recharge cycles earlier than he usually manages. He’ll probably be annoyed by the energon and the misplaced gun when he wakes up, but really, those barely even qualify as problems.

When you finally get Starscream horizontal, you’re not sure his head even hits the berth before he’s deep in recharge. And all in all? You’re pretty satisfied by how the night went. Sure, maybe there are things that could have gone better. But Starscream’s fueled and asleep, and he’s listening to at least _some_ of your advice for a change. It’s remarkable how much more tolerable he gets when he doesn’t just disregard every single thing you say just because you’re the one saying it. So yes, you’re definitely satisfied with the evening. Starscream doesn’t show any signs of waking up, and you don’t have anywhere else to be, so you let yourself settle down into a corner of the room, relax, and wait for the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/156342116526/to-keep-warm-spockandawe-the-transformers-idw)


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